A federal judge strikes down the administration's plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census — which experts say could scare immigrant and mixed-status families from responding

Asking about citizenship status on the census would harm immigrant communities for decades to come.

The goal of the census is to collect an accurate count of residents. In March 2018, the Trump-Pence administration said it would add a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census. Experts worried that doing so would scare many immigrants from responding. The effect would be an undercount of immigrant communities, which could skew their political representation and cause them to lose out on federal funding, including for health care programs.

In a decision that could wind up at the U.S. Supreme Court, a January 2019 ruling blocks the additional question — saying that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross exceeded his authority under federal law when he decided to add the citizenship question to the 2020 Census.